


Sunglasses

by blitzente



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:03:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blitzente/pseuds/blitzente
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor does his rounds for the last time. (Spoilers up to Journey's End.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunglasses

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fic written in 2008 for vixen_of_light on LiveJournal, which will almost certainly be made AU by The End of Time.

"You don't _look_ like a doctor," Donna said accusingly.

"I am, I am," insisted the man sitting opposite her.

In Donna's opinion, he looked more like he needed to see a counsellor himself. Despite the thick fog creeping up the window behind him and the sputtering lightbulb directly above his head, he was wearing a ridiculously large pair of round sunglasses. He also had a luxuriant ginger moustache almost obscuring his mouth; the colour clashed painfully with that of his actual hair (which Donna couldn't blame him for wanting to draw attention away from - it had a very distinctive, recently-electrocuted shape). To complete the picture, his long, pinstriped legs were sticking out behind the desk at an uncomfortable-looking angle, as if he'd intended to rest them on top of it and they'd slipped off the side.

"No, you're not," snapped Donna, matching his petulant tone and raising him an annoyed one. "Last time I was here, I had this old man with a beard, not _you_."

The doctor-impersonator hesitated. Ah-_ha_, thought Donna. "He's ill," he said, just a fraction of a second too late to sound convincing.

"And you've got a fake moustache, and what kind of doctor wears _those_ trainers? Honestly, you're not fooling anyone. Ten seconds and I'm calling the police - need to know there's some doctor-napping weirdo on the loose -"

"All right!" said the man, and Donna was pleased to see that he was flushing red. He bent over his desk for a moment. Donna assumed he was reaching for something inside his jacket, but when he produced a thick sheaf of official-looking papers and slapped them down in front of her, she realised he must have got them out from underneath instead.

"There you go, see?" the man told her triumphantly as she leafed through them. "I'm a doctor. How can I help you?"

Donna eventually had to admit that she could see nothing wrong with the idiot's credentials. She pushed them back across the table, where they disappeared as abruptly as he'd produced them. "Well," she said, "what's the point if you're just filling in while he's off sick?"

"He might not be in for a while, he's not feeling well at all -" the man started to say. He probably noticed Donna raising an eyebrow, though, because he hastily added, "'Course, when he _is_ back, I'll brief him on everything. Don't worry about it."

"If you say so," Donna said grudgingly. She was still uneasy about this doctor, but damn it, she was going to get answers from _someone_, and it might as well be someone she didn't feel guilty about threatening. Not like gramps, or her mum, or... She shook the thought off. Yeah, she'd see how much of a loony he thought she was afterwards.

He nodded along as she told him about the wedding and subsequent car crash she had no memory of, the inane news stories of pepperpots on the streets that everyone else thought were true, the job she didn't remember losing, the complete strangers she occasionally ran into (some of them quite good-looking) who would take one look at her and conspicuously walk off as fast as possible, the headaches she got which aspirin did nothing to relieve, the way her family kept giving her odd glances when they thought she couldn't see them...

The doctor's expression when she'd finished was impossible to read, thanks to the sunglasses and moustache covering most of it. Donna thought this was just as well. If he thought she was mental, there was no hope.

"That's a very interesting story, Donna," said the man after an awkward silence. "Sounds to me like you might have some form of amnesia, or -"

"Amnesia?" Donna repeated dismissively. "Oh, don't give me that! That's what happens in, I dunno, films and stuff - it doesn't really, does it? Aren't you a doctor?"

"Yeah..." She still couldn't see the man's face, but he was talking noticeably slower now, as if he had to deliberately choose each word before he said it. "Anyway, it's certainly not a common problem. My advice to you, Miss Noble, is to forget about it."

Donna goggled at him. "You what?"

"Forget about it. Move on." The doctor waved a hand irritably. "All of us have, err, memories we don't want to come back. That's one remarkable thing about the human brain - makes everything seem normal again. Just step outside, don't think about it any more, and I promise you times will get better."

"And that's it, is it? That's going to magically cure everything?"

"No, no," he said, sounding not half as exasperated as Donna was feeling, "but don't you see? You don't need those memories, Donna." He leaned forward across the desk; Donna, on the verge of opening her mouth again, flinched backwards instead. "You must have found this hard, and I'm sorry, I really am. But this isn't going to help. You need to keep living, Donna, because if there's one person I know who could rebuild themselves after losing this much, it's you."

For once, Donna couldn't think of a reply immediately. The doctor kept staring at her from behind those ridiculous sunglasses. She met where she assumed his gaze was, and -

"I don't believe this," she said angrily. She grabbed her bag and got to her feet.

"What d'you -?"

"What do I mean? I mean I came here 'cause I thought there'd be someone who could _help_, dumbo! I didn't come here for some impostor to feed me a load of self-help book rubbish! First thing I do as soon as I'm out of this room, I'm - I'm ringing in to get you the sack, you see if I don't!"

She stormed out of the room, which was already an impressive feat in high heels, and slammed the door behind her. Stupid incompetent doctors, she thought. Waste of an afternoon.


End file.
